In the production of coiled or disc-like retaining rings made of a metallic material, it is a common practice to stress relieve or heat treat the rings to a desirable strength and minimize stress concentrations occurring in the initial formation of the rings. In order to assist such processing, it has been common to stack and wrap a plurality of the rings in an aluminum foil wrap for manual handling. In some instances, such as for example retaining rings, the rings are formed with a circumferential gap or opening. Here the customer, or end user, may desire that the rings to be stacked with the gaps oriented. This can be accomplished to a fair degree by the foil wrap. Depending on the material thickness, at times over one hundred rings would be stacked and wrapped in foil. The rings were then heat treated while in the foil wrap. After heat treat, the rings, while still contained in the foil wrap, were air cooled and the inside diameter of this stack of rings was later sprayed or otherwise coated with oil or other corrosion inhibitor to inhibit corrosion. To further ensure against corrosion, the foil wrapped stacks could be placed in specially treated “VCI” plastic bags; i.e. volatile corrosive inhibitors. Again the stacked rings as held in the foil wrap did assist to some degree in the manual handling for initiation of heat treat and subsequent anti-corrosion coating, or oiling, and for shipping to the end user and handling of the rings by the end user for assembly on certain components. The present invention is directed to a manually or mechanically actuable retainer clip for holding the rings together with a desired orientation of the rings, including gap orientation, without the need of foil wrapping and to thereby simplify handling for processing and shipping and handling by the customer and to improve the heat treat and oiling or other corrosion inhibitor procedures. At the same time, the clips firmly clamp the rings in the stack. In addition, the retainer clip can be saved and used repeatedly.